Latest / CEOs and ABCs / Eliot Hamlisch (Amtrak, AMC Theatres & Wyndham Hotels) How To Be Promoted Every Two Years, The Cost of Comfort Zones & Staying Connected with Family During Travel Seasons #034

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Eliot Hamlisch (Amtrak, AMC Theatres & Wyndham Hotels) How To Be Promoted Every Two Years, The Cost of Comfort Zones & Staying Connected with Family During Travel Seasons #034 · CEOs and ABCs

• 0:00
  Speaker A: The work will always be there. So even if I were to do it all the time, there would still be more to do. So we'll finish dinner or have a particular interaction with a car salesman, and they'll say, dad, that was a great customer experience. Totally unprompted, and I love everything about it.
• 0:16
  Speaker B: Welcome back to CEOs and ABCs. My guest today is Elliot Hamlisch, the Chief commercial Officer of Amtrak, where he's leading a full experience transformation with hospitality as a mindset. From American Express to Wyndham to AMC theaters and now Amtrak, Elliott's career has been far from linear. Yet it's provided him with a deep understanding of consumer psychology and behavior separate from his resume. Elliot is also a husband and father of two who thinks deeply about how to stay connected during intense seasons of travel and how to prepare his children to lead happy, healthy, successful lives. In this conversation, we uncover how to compartmentalize work and family life to protect presence, and that choosing happiness is really the only path you can take.
• 1:00
  Speaker A: Life. Life is short. We don't know how long we have together on this earth, and you have to be happy. The chief marketing officer at the time walked into my office and said, great job in your first three months. Tomorrow we are announcing that your boss is leaving and we'd like you to lead the global sales team. Terror set in.
• 1:21
  Speaker B: Welcome to CEOs and ABCs. Real stories from execs who lead at work and show up at home. Career moves, parenting, wins, fails, and everything in between. I'm your host, Kevin Rice. Here's today's episode. Elliot, thank you so much for being here today.
• 1:34
  Speaker A: Kevin, pleasure to be with you. Thanks for having me.
• 1:37
  Speaker B: Yeah. It's great to see you. It's been like a year and I'll look forward to seeing you. Are you going to be at the Patao Summit?
• 1:42
  Speaker A: I was planning to be. We can save that story for another time. The answer is maybe.
• 1:46
  Speaker B: Awesome. Well, hopefully I'll see you there.
• 1:48
  Speaker A: Sounds great.
• 1:50
  Speaker B: You've had this really impressive career. I didn't realize it, but I was kind of stalking your LinkedIn. You graduated Magna cum laude from Harvard, and then you went kind of up through the ranks at American Express and Deloitte and Starwood and Wyndham and amc. And now you're the chief commercial officer at Amtrak. Before we kind of dive into the career and leadership stuff, like, what does life look like for you today? Kind of. What's the story behind the resume?
• 2:16
  Speaker A: Yeah. Well, great. Thanks, Kevin. It has been a fascinating career thus far and to Your point? It has been meandering in ways that I wouldn't necessarily have anticipated, certainly none linear in nature, which has actually been a ton of fun. And I know we're going to get a bit into that and maybe some advice for others as, as they think about their careers. But I have really enjoyed, really every, every moment of every role that I've had has certainly served a purpose. I've learned new things along the way, which has been great. And the role that I have right now at Amtrak has actually brought it all together in a really nice way. We're very focused on the customer, very focused on doing what we can to ensure an exceptional customer experience along the way. And really that's the common thread throughout my career is I've been very customer centric and very customer oriented. Right. So whether that's a credit card holder at American Express or one of my clients at Deloitte where I was in the customer strategy practice or thinking about loyalty members at Wyndham or amc, it's been very focused on communicating, messaging and ensuring that we have again an exceptional customer, customer experience in every, every facet of our business. So from a professional perspective, in a great spot, enjoying what I'm doing and we're going to get into the family, the family as well, but overall in a good place.
• 3:40
  Speaker B: Yeah, I was able to gather that. Right. Customer guest experience has been kind of the through line or the red thread of your career. How does that show up for you as a father? Do you consciously think about do I design the experience for my kids and my family too?
• 3:55
  Speaker A: You know, it's so funny. I wish that my kids were here to help answer that question. I've actually spoken about it so much and maybe we'll get a bit into sort of where the lines are blurred between personal and professional. My kids will now comment to me when they either have a great customer experience or a bad customer experience. So we'll finish dinner, the four of us, I've got two kids, a 12 year old son and a 10 year old daughter and we'll finish dinner or have a particular interaction with a car salesman or somebody, a store and they'll say, dad, that was a great customer experience, totally unprompted and I love everything about it. They've become very accustomed to and sort of understanding the psychology of the interactions that they have and I think appreciate what a good experience looks like and it's permeated their lives in ways as well when they're dealing with their customers or their friends or their acquaintances. And I think it's a really nice lens through which to look at the way you engage in every aspect of your life. So it's been a very proud, proud moment for me as a dad to see them, you know, start, start using that vocabulary and think about what it means for them to provide a great experience for, for their friends and, and neighbors.
• 5:14
  Speaker B: Yeah, that's awesome. I mean, everything is an interaction and right there's all these quotes like Maya Angelou talking about. You're going to remember how you experienced, like how you felt, not what happened or what was said. And I can certainly see how you're bringing that to Amtrak. Right. It seems like you've really kind of taken this approach of hospitality. Tell us a little bit about kind of your vision for the next chapter of Amtrak and your role in leading it.
• 5:42
  Speaker A: Yeah, so Amtrak's a really interesting company in a host of ways, some of which we'll get into today, some of which we won't. It's essentially a 50 year old legacy brand that's, that's become part of the fabric of our country. We've got 500 different destinations across the country provide mobility for millions of people that, that don't have other mobility options. And from a moving people around the country perspective, there's a lot to love about the mission and the areas in which we're focused as an organization. Because we're a 50 year old legacy company that for a very long time has been focused on operating efficiency. We haven't necessarily had the customer at the heart or the center of the way that we've thought about service delivery. It's been about, let's make sure that trains get from point A to point B on time and safely and reliably. And generally speaking, we do a pretty good job of that. Right. Everybody has a great Amtrak memory. Others have, you know, less great Amtrak memories. But part of what's heartening about working for the company is that most people have had some engagement with Amtrak and there are not many companies out there where that's the case. Right. And so being able to touch a really significant portion of the country has, has been fun. So back to the, the customer front again. We've, we've, I think for quite a long time operated in a. We've always done things the same way. So let's just keep doing that mindset. And I was brought in essentially to change that. Right. So, so I've been very much a change agent, mindset, transformational type thinking and it's been really fun to see where the organization's up for that change and where we need to, you know, figure out ways to. To work with folks to help understand, one, where they're coming from, and then, two, what some of the upside might be for them and for our customers. As we think about this broader customer transformation at. At the heart of it, we are trying to ensure that we differentiate relative to our main competitors, flying and cars, to help folks understand the benefits of rail travel. So you're not stuck on I95 and traffic. You're able to get up and go to the bathroom anytime you'd like. You can hop to the cafe car and grab a sandwich or my favorite cheese platter. And, you know, unlike a plane, you're not stuck in a middle seat circling above Newark or DCA or LaGuardia, because we don't have any middle seats. Right. We've got big, picturesque windows that you can look out and relax and be productive and get your work done. And so it's been fun there as well to really focus on some of the more human sides of the business and start to message more increasingly and more effectively what differentiates rail travel relative to some of the others.
• 8:34
  Speaker B: Yeah, I have my own experience coming home from college, visiting my parents, taking Amtrak. The trains were always on schedule. It was always the transfer buses that I had issues with. But. But the train was just an amazing experience because, like you said, like, get up, stretch your legs, walk around. You're not stuck in a seat, and you're not getting all these delays when TSA is on strike or something. Where did you. Where did you foster this, like, focus on human experience? Was there something that happened in your career that, like, really made it click or how did that kind of be? How was that developed for you?
• 9:12
  Speaker A: Yeah, it actually started in my childhood, believe it or not. I grew up in a household with a psychiatrist father and a social worker mother. So you can just imagine the psychoanalysis that took place at our dinner table each night. But in that environment, I got very accustomed and very attuned to understanding the human side of literally everything. Right. So in hearing the stories from my parents, in sort of understanding the guidance that they provided to me, and thinking about what makes people tick, why other people, or in my case now, professionally, consumers or travelers make the decisions that they do, what motivates them. That translated into majoring in psychology in college. Everything from, you know, social psychology to behavioral economics and decision making more broadly. And in turn, that's permeated much of my professional career as well, and really does sit at the nexus of my decision making and guidance to my teams in terms of what matters at the end of the day, if our customers aren't satisfied, whatever the decision is that we made probably wasn't the right one. Right. And there's some nuance and some gray in there, but we do need to start with a very customer centric mindset. And again, for me, that dates back to, you know, my, my very early years growing up in, in Ithaca, New York.
• 10:36
  Speaker B: Yeah, I imagine being in that environment of constantly thinking, oh, if I say this, how are they analyzing what I'm going to say? How did you end up in this career path you've gone down? Did you think you were going to practice as a psychologist or in therapy? Or did you kind of have an idea if you wanted to translate that human understanding into a business career?
• 10:56
  Speaker A: I was gung ho pre med. Well, you read most of high school and my first semester in college.
• 11:05
  Speaker B: So I wanted to be a doctor.
• 11:07
  Speaker A: I wanted to be a doctor and I was either gonna be a psychiatrist like dad or an orthopedic surgeon. Those, those were sort of the two paths. And I thought, yeah, I can, I can wait until medical school to decide which of those two paths to, to pursue. I took one semester of Introduction to Chemistry Chem A at, at Harvard. And that was the last, the last time I was considering pre med as a, a realistic path to pursue. And, and, and so that was okay, but it, it caused about, okay, well if that's not the answer, as I thought would be the case, then what is next for me? And I sort of quickly came to appreciate that what I really liked was the people side of either being a doctor or of going into business. And so parlayed that. I think I had always had an eye towards psychology as a major, but parlayed that interest in people to a focus more on business and again decision making and ended up writing my thesis on the impact that goal setting has on performance. And you know, then as you shared earlier, started my career at American Express and, and have gone from there.
• 12:20
  Speaker B: Yeah. Well, it seems like you made a good decision. When I was looking at it, it's just like almost every couple years it was a step up. You were going from, you know, director to VP to EVP and now Chief Commercial Officer. It was just like a consistent ladder up promotions along the way. What do you attribute that continual promotion ascendance too? Was it just you're really good at your job? Was it how you built relationships? Cause I know there's a lot of People out there who feel like they're doing a good job, but they're struggling to get promoted. What helped you along the way with that? Just steady path upwards?
• 12:55
  Speaker A: Yeah, I think it's all of the things that you just mentioned. I think maybe sort of most important is really being dedicated to your craft, whatever that craft happens to be. And part of that is developing and nurturing great relationships along the way. Certainly I don't credit myself 100% for all of the sort of meandering and promotions that I've had over the course of my career. A lot of it is about the people that I've gotten to know. Much of it is luck, much of it is timing. Wyndham is a really good example. I was three months into my role at Wyndham, having just finished a three year stint at Starwood, and my boss's boss and chief Marketing officer at the time walked into my office and said, great job in your first three months. Tomorrow we are announcing that your boss is leaving and we're splitting her role into a couple of different pieces and we'd like you to lead the global sales team. Terror set in. It was. I had never led a team bigger than 10 to 12, which was about the size of my team when I first joined Wyndham. Now I was.
• 14:09
  Speaker B: Had you done anything in sales up until that point?
• 14:11
  Speaker A: Yeah, I had. I was leading a sales strategy and innovation team. So I had a lot of experience in call it the back end enablement of sales organization. So sales op, sales technology, sales strategy, performance management, things of that nature I was well versed on. Also what I.
• 14:25
  Speaker B: So it wasn't like a bad word to you?
• 14:28
  Speaker A: No, I was excited about the sales aspect, but I had never led a team of 100 people before. We had a billion dollar revenue target over the course of the subsequent year and for somebody who hadn't done that before, really exciting in a lot of ways and completely terrifying in a number of other ways. And that was the first of probably three different occasions at Wyndham where I got an unprompted thanks for doing that. Now we'd like you to do this. So after a year in the sales role, I was asked to transition into a role overseeing the loyalty and partnerships team, also something that I had never done before. And then a couple years into that role, I was asked to take on leadership of the revenue management and third party distribution teams. All sorts of things that I had never done before. And again, part of that is having had success in the roles and demonstrated an ability to learn new things in the roles that I had before. Part of that was an openness to new experiences and part of that was having developed great relationships with the other folks and decision makers in the organization who were willing to take a chance on me. Right. And being open to that. So I do think it's a combination of a lot of different variables. But again, starting with your dedication and your passion and your commitment to the role that you're in, in tandem with an openness to trying new things is really.
• 16:03
  Speaker B: Yeah, well, I mean, it sounds like your confidence was developed in some early success and so you knew, hey, I, I've never done this before, but I know how to learn. I know how to develop a new skill and be able to take on this new challenge. Which is funny, and this might sound trite cause I had a conversation with my 9 year old the other day. He was struggling with some math and I was like, Levi, you've never been taught this before, so nobody expects you to know it. What we expect is for you to work and learn it and, you know, figure it out over time. We're here to support you. But he really down on himself because he didn't know how to do this specific type of math. Um, but just reminding him though, you haven't been taught it before, you're not supposed to know this yet. And I think just translating into our career when we take on new challenges, nobody expects you to know it on day one. They expect you to be able to learn and work hard and figure it out.
• 16:54
  Speaker A: Exactly right. Well said.
• 16:56
  Speaker B: Were there any seasons throughout this career arc that you know were particularly like, challenging or stressful or maybe just stretched you in new ways? You mentioned a few where you had to learn new skills, but what were some of the kind of seasons that forced you to grow as a leader?
• 17:12
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's interesting. Many of the jobs that I've had have required a fair amount of travel. And travel for me is something as a. I always sort of describe myself as a hospitality guy at heart. Travel can be really exciting professionally. It can help you grow in a number of different ways. It obviously, you know, brings with it new experiences, new people, and that's all great. And it puts a pretty significant strain on home life. My wife works full time, as I shared earlier. We've got two kids, both of whom are incredibly active, both of whom have homework every night that they need help with. As you just described about your 9 year old, Levi, they've got activities to go to. Um, and not only do I want to be there for all of that. But I also want to be able to help given that my, my wife again works full time too. And so finding that right balance and maybe this is less it, it's in part a season because that's ebbed and flowed over the course of my career. But it's, it's really encouraged me to find ways to compartmentalize, you know, different aspects of my day to day to be able to be there even if it's virtually when I'm on the road. So a good example would be, you know, I'm spending a couple days in my current job down in DC every morning at 7:30 when I'm in DC, I have a FaceTime breakfast call with my kids. So they know to expect it. They've got their, you know, their iPads ready and we literally eat breakfast together at, at 7:30. It's, you know that, that right window before I'm in the office when my kids are getting ready for school. And it's great and it's literally just become part of our week. Right. And so it's an example of again I'll use your term, one of those seasons that can be hard in a lot of ways. But by finding opportunities to meaningfully engage with family or in whatever it happens to be sleeping, finding time to go to the gym, et cetera, I've been able to over the course of my career, I think achieve a good balance. But that's been hard at times and it's taken some iterating to, you know, to find something that, that works well and we all look forward to our breakfast together.
• 19:31
  Speaker B: Yeah, that's great. Breakfast has been kind of my anchor for the day with my kids too. I really struggle with evenings because like your kids, my kids have all these activities and now they're pushing later into the evening. So evenings are pretty tough. But morning has just been our consistent anchor. And I, I try to do things like I've got little connection cards that I created that give me topics and prompts because sometimes I feel it feels a little forced and this kind of me a mechanism to be like hey, I'm going to flip a card and they know what's coming. But those, those rituals are just so important for like keeping us connected, especially when you're traveling. Hi, Kevin here. If you're enjoying this conversation and you know someone else who's working to grow in their career while staying present at home, I'd really love it if you could share this episode with them. It's one of the best ways you can help us and help more leaders build their careers in a way that they're proud of without missing the moments that matter, matter most. So you talked about compartmentalizing. How do you actually compartmentalize and not let work creep into your mind when you're spending time with your kids?
• 20:32
  Speaker A: Yeah, it is something that I have certainly gotten better at over time and still have work to do on it. Many of our jobs are very demanding from a psychological perspective. Right. There's a lot to think about, big team, there's. There's always something to do. Right. I could work 24 hours a day, every day and still not be done with the work that needs to be done. It never ends. And I actually think that that insight is what's helped me to compartmentalize. Right. The work will always be there. Right. So even if I were to do it all the time, there would still be more to do. And so if I take an hour or two or three or six or take a day off, imagine that, right? Take a full day off, it's still going to be, be there. And I've got a great team that I can rely on as well to make forward progress. And so I've allowed myself to take those breaks. So we have a host of different, if I call them rituals or maybe sort of guidelines that we've established in the house. So for example, there are no screens at the table, right. So when we're sitting and having a meal together, with the exception of 7:30 breakfast when I'm in Washington or elsewhere, then we use that as a way to connect. But when we're all together, we leave our screens elsewhere. Right. So that includes my ph, that includes my kids phones and iPads and my wife's phone. And it really allows us to be present and be there in the moment. And we could be talking about something super meaningful or nothing at all, but in that moment there's nothing that matters other than us being together and being present with one another. And unfortunately, screens have become so pervasive in all of our lives that it's quite difficult to rid ourselves of them even for a few minutes. But we have found that it's supported our ability to connect with one another by leaving our screens elsewhere. So a handful of things like that. Again, guidelines that we put in place that allow us to be more present, though it can be challenging at times.
• 22:36
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I've got some rituals that I think are really important for reinforcing kind of consistency. So when I walk through the door, I mean, technically I'm doing this from home. So I walk through my office door into the living room. But I've got a ritual to help me reorient myself from business mode to dad mode. And then when I see my kids, we've got a little handshake that we do that kind of like, okay, now we're reconnected and I'm reentering my life as dad. And I'm setting aside, you know, anything I'm thinking about with work.
• 23:07
  Speaker A: That's so fun. I love that.
• 23:08
  Speaker B: Yeah. So what you talked about earlier, I see some parallels from what you're doing at Amtrak to this experience. Right. Amtrak was very logistically focused, and now it's more about the human experience. What advice would you give to any other parents listening who are trying to transition from logistic family operating to just tactical day to day stuff to creating a better lived experience for their family?
• 23:32
  Speaker A: Yeah, you know, it's, it's interesting. One of the things that I've reflected on, it's sort of very, very existential in nature and maybe not a direct answer to the question, but, you know, our. One of our jobs as parents is to best prepare our children to go out into the world and live happy, successful lives, whatever success means to them. And I've talked about that a lot with my kids. That success can mean many different things. It doesn't necessarily need to be promotions or money or call it material things. Right. It can be as simple as you're happy. Right. And happy may be, in my mind, the best barometer of one's success. And so by focusing my time as a dad, and my wife and I have spent a lot of time talking about this as well, on what can I do to ensure that my kids are best prepared to live happy, successful lives is the lens through which I think about a lot of things. That doesn't necessarily mean that they're happy all the time. Right. Part of that is helping them to understand that there's adversity in life and that things don't always go their way. I had a great example of that this past weekend. My son, who's a pitcher for his baseball team, had a terrible outing. A bunch of walks, a bunch of hits. And he was fired up about it. Right. He was mad about it. And the reflection, and the reflection after the game is, hey, bud, those days happen, right? Major League baseball pitchers have bad days. Uh, he ended up, you know, the, the head coach of the team pulled him out maybe two or three innings into his outing. And he was fired up about that. You Know, why are you pulling me out? And it actually gave us a really in. In my mind, I don't know if he would reflect on it the same way, but a nice moment to reflect on what the learnings are from a moment like that. Right. And, and as a parent, being able to take a step back and sort of remove the emotion from the situation and be able to focus on what's the learning, what's the opportunity here, and importantly, how do we maybe react differently next time. Right. Because this is not the last time he's going to be pulled from a game for not having a good outing. And so the question is how we continue to get sort of increasingly comfortable with adversity and that things aren't always going to go our way and that that's okay. And, and that doesn't mean you can't lead a happy and healthy and successful life. Part of that is, is just being able to react differently in, in different circumstances. And I think that, you know, you, you didn't ask this question, but, but maybe.
• 26:20
  Speaker B: No, I love it. It's a great, like, north star of like, okay, what is my role as a parent? What's my, what's my job here? What's my job description?
• 26:27
  Speaker A: Yeah, and so, yes, that's exactly right. And I actually think there are a lot of interesting parallels to the work world as well, where team members get really fired up and emotional about a lot of different things. Right. And as a leader of a team, focusing on skills like active listening and understanding a diversity of opinions and perspectives and appreciating where folks are coming from and that they may just be having a really bad day. Right. Maybe something went wrong at home. Maybe, you know, maybe they stubbed their toe on their way to the lunchroom. But understanding and being patient and actively listening to be appreciative of where they're coming from in their perspective, I have found to also be really important as a leader in the office, not dissimilar to being a leader or a parent at home.
• 27:16
  Speaker B: Yeah. I like how you, in both examples, you described giving them a moment and just kind of holding space for them to, like, experience the feelings before you got into, what are we going to learn? And what's the problem? And that was something I really struggled with for most of my career, was like, I was a problem solver, so if somebody would come to me with a problem, and before they'd even finished, I'd be like, all right, here's three things we can do. I wouldn't even give them a Chance to sit with it. And, you know, especially with my kids, that's something I've really had to work on, is allowing them to feel into their emotions and allowing them to experience it for an appropriate amount of time before getting into, what are we going to learn from this? How do we get back up? What do we practice harder? So there's a little bit of nuance, but I think it's really important to just give it a moment before we jump into problem solving. As a leader, I think for me, I got a lot of validation from that. It was like, people would come to me with problems, and then I'd fix it, and I'd be like, all right, good job, Kevin. You did a good job fixing a problem. And there's a whole lot of psychoanalysis of that right there that I'm sure your parents would dive into.
• 28:23
  Speaker A: I'm sure that's right.
• 28:25
  Speaker B: So I'm curious if you were to look back, you know, on the things that you did or if. If somebody were to ask you, like, what can I do to, like, see some upward mobility in my career? Is there any, like, tangible advice of, like, here's some things that worked for me that you might want to try as you're. You're looking to progress upward in your career?
• 28:43
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, maybe. A couple things that I would highlight. One, I think figuring out as quickly as you can what to. What you can do to make your boss's job easier or take things off of your boss's plate is something that I have found to pay dividends over time. Right. So your boss has a lot going on in whatever circumstance you find yourself. They've got a number of different direct reports. They also probably have their own work to do. Right. Depending on the level. And so to the extent that you can be supportive of them and make their lives easier, one, the more you'll learn, two, the more indispensable you'll be to them. And three, when they're looking at the next promotion opportunity or trying to find somebody to help with a special project or move up in the organization, more likely than not, you'll be somebody that comes to the top of their mind because you've been so proactively helpful to them along the way. So that. That's one thing that I would. I would definitely recommend. Second, and we touched on this briefly earlier in the conversation, but. But being open to new ideas, new avenues, new paths, I think is something that's also important. Early in my career, I anticipated that my path was going to be incredibly linear.
• 30:03
  Speaker B: Right.
• 30:03
  Speaker A: So I started my career at American Express, and I thought I was going to be at American Express for 30 years. Right. I started in the strategic planning group. We spent a couple years doing that. And there, there have been a lot of people that have stayed at American Express for 30 years. And I thought, I'll probably be one of them. Maybe I'll go back to business school, but then I'll come back to amex. And part of that is because I didn't. Other than a couple of internships, I didn't know what life was like elsewhere. Right. So Amex, after, you know, a handful of months in the business, felt very safe. I knew how to find my office. I knew where the bathroom was. I knew the leadership team, I knew the folks that I was working with. And so it was amongst the safest options to just keep doing that. Right. And maybe I could have, had I not gone back to business school, which I did after three years at American Express, maybe I could have had a long and successful career there and been very happy doing so. I opted to go try new and different things, and that can be, again, both exciting and scary. But for those folks who feel like they might be stuck, I think being open to trying something new, even if it's uncomfortable, could pay dividends. Right. Over time. And you do need to be thoughtful about what that is. There's a big difference between a full career switch versus maybe something in a similar industry, but a new company. There, there are lots of variants and nuances, but being open to getting out of your comfort zone, being open to new experiences, even if that means maybe it's not a promotion, maybe it's a lateral into a new function where you're learning something new that makes you that much more valuable to the organization. It gives you skills that you didn't necessarily have before. You know, as, as we shared earlier in this, this conversation, that's been really helpful for me from a development standpoint because I've, I've. By getting out of my comfort zone, I've learned things that I, I wouldn't have otherwise.
• 32:04
  Speaker B: Yeah. It's funny you mentioned the. Taking things off your boss's plate. My kids, here I go again, talking about my kids. But my, my kids were trying to figure out how to make more money recently, and they're like, can you just give us a weekly allowance? I was like, well, we're not going to do weekly allowances, but I will give you opportunities to earn money by doing things that, that take responsibilities off my plate. So I was like, if your room is clean, that's step one. That's just like your baseline. You have to do that for being part of the family. You don't get compensated for that. But then if you want to come do the dishes, you want to do the laundry, you want to do, you know, take out the trash, those are the things that I will pay you for as long as, like, your room's clean and your other basic chores are met. But it was kind of a, we had a mini conversation about, like, like, not saying I'm their boss, but, like, okay, if you want to earn money, like, you need to make my life easier. And it's very similar to, like, what you described of, you know, supporting your boss and taking things off their plate.
• 33:02
  Speaker A: Absolutely, yes. I would love for my kids to do any of those things. That sounds great. Maybe I'll, I'll explore compensation as well. At this point, we're even trying to get them to brush their teeth for a full two minutes in the morning and in the evening, which amazingly proves challenging as well. So I, I, I hear you on all of those things.
• 33:21
  Speaker B: I, I, I now brush my teeth with my kids, like 7 o' clock at night. And it's just, we just stand there together in a row and we brush our teeth together, and they're not done until I'm done. Um, and it was just the only way that I could figure out how to get them to take care of their oral hygiene.
• 33:37
  Speaker A: I love it. I'm gonna try that tonight. That's an excellent idea.
• 33:40
  Speaker B: Please do. You know, sing us, like, sing a silly song while you're brushing your teeth. It like, the more fun you can make it, the better. To get where you are today takes a lot of ambition, a lot of drive. Where do you think that came from? Was it something that you learned from your parents? Was it something that you learned from your friend groups growing up? Or, like, where, where did your sense of, like, drive and ambition come from?
• 34:04
  Speaker A: Yeah, I think it's a, it's a couple of different things. I, I do think much of it is about the values that are established for you and your house growing up. Right. And the examples that are set by your parents. So, you know, interestingly, neither of my parents were in the business world, but were both quite successful in their own professions. And again, success means different things to different people, but I do think you develop much of that intrinsic drive and intrinsic motivation from the values that are established in your house very early on. So that's piece one. Piece two, I think, is who you surround yourself with also makes a big difference. And I've spent a lot of time, literally even this morning, having that conversation with my son. This happened to be about his friends. And I was just commenting to him, you know, his name's Jacob. Jacob. You've got just a really nice group of friends. Right. You know, he's had the kids in school that are mean, the kids in school that are, you know, not necessarily doing the things that they should be doing. Wide spectrum. And he, for a host of reasons has just tended to not be friends with those kids. Right. He's sort of friendly with everyone, but his closest friends have manifested into just a really nice group of kids. And I was complimenting him on that. Right. Cause much of that is about the choices that he's making and his character and the way that he's developed. And in a way, it was sort of a nice dad moment. Like, hey, you're probably doing something right here. Again, there's a spectrum. I'm sure I don't do it. All right? But that's not for me to decide. Those are things that he needs to decide on his own. And I think that motivation, you know, so the, the, the 12 year old version of, of this is, is in some way who you're friends with. You're focused on school. Right? There, There are ways in which that manifests, but it was really, it was a sort of a proud moment for me, be able to be able to share with him how much I appreciated sort of the, the young man that he's developing into. And, and a lot of that is, is who he surrounded himself with. So it's an example early in life of the decisions that you make and the people that you surround yourself with also plays a role in your motivation. Right. If you're surrounded by people that are making good choices that are equally as ambitious, if not more ambitious.
• 36:19
  Speaker B: Right.
• 36:20
  Speaker A: And you're seeing how they're developing and the decisions that they're making. That motivates you as well. So some of it is intrinsic, some of it is extrinsic. And, and I, I do think that it's a combination of both in my case. And again, I'm seeing that manifest in, in my kids as well, which is fun to see.
• 36:39
  Speaker B: That's great. No, I love that that's a great proud dad moment. And you've had all these successes and awards in your career, so it's nice to take a second to recognize yourself and the great job that you're doing with your kids too. You mentioned values have you consciously thought about, like, what values I'm trying to teach or instill with my kids? And did they come from your parents? Did they come from your own life lessons? Like, how do you think about values in your, in your family dynamic?
• 37:08
  Speaker A: Yeah, you know, it's, it's actually quite interesting. The short answer is we've actually not had an explicit list of values that we've endeavored to teach or even write down for, for that matter. And, and my wife and I have had that explicit conversation. Right. Should we, should we have an explicit list of values? And what we found is that, that they've just sort of naturally, again, manifest. Right. It's. The more we've thought about it, it's the way that we're engaging the example that we set, the decisions that we're making and the explanation of those decisions. Right. Here's why we decided to do X and not Y. And we found that those have really stuck with our kids in a meaningful way. And so therefore, I actually, I love the idea of an explicit list of values that are sort of, of documented and taught, just not the way that we've done things thus far. So conceptually, like, it hasn't come to bear for us. But I, I do think that we're doing a pretty good job of highlighting to our kids what motivates us, why we've made the decisions that we made both for ourselves and for our family. And at. At least until now, right. In the last 10 years for my daughter and 12 years for my son, they. They tend to be making pretty good decisions too. So if and when that doesn't happen, we'll jot down values and we'll start to teach to them. But, but thus far it's, it's worked to not have those documented.
• 38:37
  Speaker B: Yeah. Well, I mean, what I'll highlight, just double click on, is bringing your kids along. Right. Explaining the rationale. So instead of just making decisions, you're bringing them along so they can understand the, like, underlying values associated that you're using to make those decisions. I do have like a Mission vision values poster that I put up for my kids. They're nine and six. It's not landing for them, but I'm thinking like, I'm planting small seeds and as they get older, eventually they'll start to stick. Like I. Today I illustrate decisions I'm making based on it. Like, hey, we're on this hike together. I know you want to turn around, but remember, one of our family values is work ethic, and we're going to Go for five more minutes. But I think eventually it will start to like build a foundation.
• 39:28
  Speaker A: Yeah. Because what, what's nice is that they're hearing about it regularly and often now. Right. So it's, it's something that will likely just become innate for them. Right. Because they've been hearing about it from a very young age. Including your two year old. Right. Who doesn't know what work ethic is yet, but will soon enough.
• 39:46
  Speaker B: Yeah, well, he works real hard when it comes to his chalk drawings.
• 39:51
  Speaker A: Listen, those are important to.
• 39:53
  Speaker B: We talked about advice that you would give to others who are looking to grow in their career. If you were to look forward to when your kids are a little bit older and they're going to go off to college, start their career, what, what advice would you give to them?
• 40:08
  Speaker A: Yeah, I, I actually give them the same advice now that I'd give to them as they go off to college as I'd give to them 20 years later, which is make decisions that make you happy. You know, life, life is short. We don't know how long we have together on this earth. And you have to be happy and you have to make sure that that doesn't necessarily have negative implications on others. Right. Because there are things that may make us happy that don't make others happy. But to the extent that you can find ways to be optimistic, find ways to have a positive outlook, don't be focused on what others define as success. Figure out what makes makes you happy. And at the end of the day, if you follow that passion and follow that path, you will be successful in whatever path you end up pursuing. So I am, and many people appreciate this about me and others find it terribly annoying, including my wife sometimes. I am a perpetual optimist, so I always try to find the good. I always feel like there's an alternative if something's going wrong. I'm always pursuing sort of that, that path to happiness. And while it can be annoying to some people who just, just want to hear me complain about something, whatever it is. Right. Can't you just say this? This sucks. Whatever it is, I really do try to, to over index on having a smile and being happy and focusing on the good in whatever, whatever circumstances I find myself. So, you know, I'm actually reading, I don't have it here with me right now, a book by Victor Frankl called A Man's Search for Meaning. Victor Frankl, Holocaust survivor and he writes this incredibly graphic book on his experience in concentration camps. And the overarching premise is trying to find good Even if you're in horrible, horrible circumstances. And I've really taken that to heart in all aspects of my life and again, trying to instill that in my children as well as well.
• 42:15
  Speaker B: Yeah, that's great. Tony Robbins is somebody that I follow and look up to, and he always talks about how success without fulfillment is the ultimate failure. At the end of the day, are you living a life that is fulfilling and makes you happy? Oftentimes when I ask my kids, what do you want to be when you grow up? I'll remind them, hey, don't you also want to be happy? I would love for one day for them to be in class and the teacher asks them what they want to grow up to be, and their response is, I want to be happy. That would make me smile.
• 42:45
  Speaker A: Proud. Proud down moment.
• 42:47
  Speaker B: Absolutely. Exactly. You have a lot going on. Taking care of two kids, a great career, your wife also having a career. How do you put your oxygen mask on first? How do you take care of yourself to keep that relentless optimism and just this amazing energy that you give off?
• 43:06
  Speaker A: Yeah, for me, physical activity makes a really big difference. So I've tried really hard with moderate success to, To. To get up in the morning before everybody else is awake and just have some me time. So we've got a little gym in the basement here in, in my house, so I have no excuse. I'm just walking down a couple flights of stairs to get to. Get to. And whether that's going for a run or a bike ride or throwing some weights around, I get great satisfaction and great release from being able to just get those endorphins going. And I, I have found that when I successfully do that, which tends to be sort of four to five days a week, that the rest of my day is that much better. Right. And I'm not taking anything away from time with the fam. Being able to support my wife and our partnership of, you know, providing for our kids, having breakfast or dinner or, you know, other family time. And it's just time for me. And so I've found that to be important. You know, we've also found. And, and it's difficult to balance this too, but time with friends also matters. Right. So we spend a lot of time as parents caring for our kids, and my wife and I tend to over index on if we've got an option of going out with friends or hanging home with our kids. We tend to over index on hanging home with our kids because we're both busy during the week, and it's nice to have that time. At the same time, it's really important to find balance. And so our kids actually, in many ways, have come to appreciate and just expect that sometimes when we've got that option, we're going to opt to go out with friends or maybe even just have a date night with the two of us to be able to spend some time together, catching up over dinner at a restaurant in town. And so it's been in many ways nice, I think, for the kids to see that too hard at the beginning. Separation anxiety. Why are mom and dad leaving? Why aren't they hanging at home with me? But it's been nice to see our kids sort of come to expect that, because in many ways, maybe back to this concept of values, though we don't have them written down. This idea of achieving balance in one's life, I think is something that we've spent a lot of time talking about with our family and demonstrating that. And it's not just about going out to dinner or going out with friends, but finding time to go to the gym, finding time to go for a walk. Just being able to do things outside of your professional life and your life as a parent are really important. And so we. We try to index on that when we can, and. And also share with the kids the importance of achieving that balance.
• 45:43
  Speaker B: I think it's really important, too, because you're also showing them or demonstrating to them that they're important, but they're not the center of the universe, because that actually is a burden for kids. If they feel like they have full control over what parents are gonna do, that's actually stressful. That's a burden. And so you're. You're probably bringing them along, explaining to them, like, hey, we need time for our relationship. This is important, so mommy and daddy can have us, you know, good relationship. And, you know, that frees them up to be like, oh, yeah, like I'm. You know, everything's not all about me. Which is a great lesson to learn. Even though you don't even have to speak it. They can just experience it.
• 46:21
  Speaker A: Yes, absolutely.
• 46:23
  Speaker B: If we were to kind of summarize some of this, Being somebody who is an ambitious professional and is also trying to balance being a present father, you know, what inspiration or advice would you have to others who are kind of in a similar position where they maybe feel stretched, they want to show up the best they can in both places. Any parting thoughts or experience of wisdom that you might be able to share?
• 46:51
  Speaker A: Yeah, maybe Best summarized, you can't be everything to everyone. All the time. And I think being mindful of
• 47:01
  Speaker B: you
• 47:01
  Speaker A: showing up as your best self, whatever that means, in the circumstances in which you find yourself, is really important. Right. We've talked about this concept of compartmentalizing. Sometimes that means that you need a day off from work because you have something that you want to do with your kids. I, I, I spoke with, with a couple of friends last week. It was take your kids to work day. And a couple of my dad friends not only didn't bring their kid to work, but they took the day off from work and went golfing with their kids. So they pulled their kids out of school, they took the day off from work, and they just had a, in, in this case, father, son, but you know, could, could be mom, daughter, could be any, any combination thereof, and they just spent a, a day, mental health day on the golf course with each other. Right. Did that have negative implications on work? Maybe. Did it have negative implications on their kids learning in school? Maybe. But is one day of work or one day of school necessarily gonna make a difference in the course of one's life? Probably not. And did this give them great time to spend together, rejuvenate, have a bonding moment? Yeah, it did. Right. And so being mindful of when you just need to take a breather, right. When you need to take a beat, when you need to over index on being a dad or being a partner or being great in the office, there are moments for all of those things and it's hard, easy to say these things, hard to find a balance and hard to achieve that balance. But I do think it is important to try to compartmentalize as best you can and achieve that balance where you are able to show up as your full, authentic self in whatever circumstance you find, and that it's okay to be balanced. And again, you don't need to be everything to everyone all the time.
• 48:58
  Speaker B: That's great. Yeah. And you don't always need to be productive. Right. That's the trap I fall into, is like, maybe I don't need to be productive right now. Maybe I just need to focus on connecting and just being present. Although your friend's son probably thinks his dad is a professional golfer. Now, if that's take your son to
• 49:13
  Speaker A: work day, I, I can't, I can't vouch for the quality of the golf that was played. Um, but yeah, they, they had a good time.
• 49:21
  Speaker B: Awesome. Um, Elliot, thank you so much for joining me today. I really just enjoyed the conversation and I love your insight around preparing our children to overcome adversity. And teaching them the skill to deal with the challenges that life throws at us. So just thank you so much for your time. I appreciate the relentless optimism and energy that you brought to our listeners today. If you're enjoying this conversation, make sure to hit subscribe so you don't miss future episodes. CEOs and ABCs is all about helping you grow in your career and show up at home. We've got many more amazing guests coming up, so tap, follow and stay tuned.